


The Beating of My Heart

by thealphagate_archivist



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Drama, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-02
Updated: 2006-04-02
Packaged: 2019-02-02 17:37:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12731199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thealphagate_archivist/pseuds/thealphagate_archivist
Summary: Daniel's life on Abydos is falling apart & so is he.





	The Beating of My Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the archivists: this story was originally archived at [The Alpha Gate](https://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Alpha_Gate), a Stargate SG-1 archive, which began migration to the AO3 in 2017 when its hosting software, eFiction, was no longer receiving support. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in November 2017. We e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are this creator and it hasn't transferred to your AO3 account, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Alpha Gate collection profile](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/thealphagate).

  
Author's notes: A little bit of Daniel/Shau'ri.  


* * *

...I am alone with the beating of my heart... Lao Chi

Inside the Cartouche Room on Abydos, Daniel Jackson was working into the night as usual. He'd found the large room behind a wall at the back of one of the larger temples on Abydos several months earlier. It was filled with cartouches that he quickly surmised were Stargate addresses. With a blinding insight, he immediately grasped its significance in relation to the Stargate itself. It was a directory. 

There were clearly other Stargates strung out all over the galaxy to which you could travel from here. He was pretty sure that in order to make those addresses work, all they'd have to do is compensate in some way for stellar drift. After all, the universe was expanding, wasn't it? That branch of science wasn't really his department, but surely Jack would know someone who could translate the addresses for the Stargate on Earth. He just hadn't decided when and how to contact Earth again. Of course, that was the tricky part because both he and the planet he was living on, were supposed to have been destroyed along with Ra's ship just over a year ago.

God Jack! The name made his heart beat faster, and his palms became damp with tension. He dropped the quill he was using momentarily and wiped them on his robes. He didn't want to spoil the scroll he was working on. He'd made a variety of inks using different kinds of ground wood charcoal in a water and oil suspension. He still had a good supply of pens and ink, but he wanted to be prepared if, or when, he ran out. The inhabitants of Abydos still used stone tablets for keeping track of their financial transactions, but Daniel had needed something easier to work with. Fortunately, he'd continued studying Art and Art History at the same time as doing his PhD in Archaeology and Linguistics. 

He'd also found that a distant tribe on the planet had a fibrous substance that they made into paper-like sheets from marsh plants, something like papyrus. Daniel had been excited by this discovery, although Shau'ri's people were intrigued when he used the sheets for writing instead of drawing pictures or constructing screens, boxes and other decorative items. Writing was not something that they did before Daniel's arrival, although the temples of their ancestors were covered in writing. Ra, the Goa'uld who'd dominated the planet for so many centuries, didn't want the people of his planet to write. However, he did want them to keep track of things such as how many slaves or women he demanded as payment on his various visits. So, they'd continued to tally their figures, hoping that this time Ra would ask for less during his next visit. 

Since Ra's death the idea of writing hadn't really caught on, in spite of Daniel's arrival. The people of Abydos were more than content to use Daniel's services as a scribe to keep a record of their stories, their accounts and their histories. In fact, Daniel's job had become a valued one in Shau'ri's tribe, which was just as well because he needed to do something to support himself and his wife. 

Daniel had first visited the planet with a hand picked reconnaissance team from the US Air Force who'd been sent to destroy any alien technology that could endanger Earth. The men on that team hadn't wanted to take him along for the ride, but rather than face the tatters of what had once been a promising academic career, he'd become insistent. He'd told the special team that he knew how to get them back home - a statement that wasn't entirely the truth. Like so many other things in his life, Daniel had just believed that he could do it. Because he had nothing to lose, he'd been inspired by a kind of reckless confidence. Along with those abilities came the annoying voices, but Daniel had always been a little weird.

So, he'd gone through the Stargate with the team. Then he'd established a bond of sorts with their leader - a man with deep secretive eyes, a man with a body of rock hard, solidly defined muscle that reminded Daniel of the copies of Men's Fitness, Men's Health or Iron Man that he used to keep in his bathroom on Earth to jerk off with, a man whose life he'd managed to save along with Shau'ri's, a man he dreamed about every night, a man he'd been carrying a torch for, a man that he was in love with - Colonel Jack O'Neill. 

The only problem was that Jack had been sent on a suicide mission to blow up the Stargate as well as himself. However, 'Crazy Daniel' had put a stop to Jack's suicide mission and the destruction of Abydos in the process. So, he'd bought himself a permanent ticket to a life on Abydos for as long as he wanted it, he just wasn't sure whether he wanted it any more. Underneath that realization lay the knowledge that he wanted Jack, a near impossibility if ever there was one. However, Daniel's marriage to a wife who'd been given to him as a present was rapidly deteriorating with each passing day. 

He glanced up and noticed that his wife, Shau'ri, was watching him intently from a dark corner by the entrance where he'd broken through the back wall. She could walk as softly as a cat on the balls of her feet.

"Dan'yel, do you not know what time it is?" she called out softly in Abydonian, "You've been working in here for several turns of the sand clock. It's almost time for our evening meal, and the sandstorm is still blowing." She pouted softly, lowering her large dark eyes before raising them flirtatiously to meet his blue ones, but she didn't entice him. The curves of her sensuous body were like the waves of the desert sands that covered much of her planet; liquefaction in her every movement as she came toward him like an enchantress. He knew that a great many men on Abydos envied him his lovely wife. Her little sideshow had fooled everyone, except her father and brother who knew that although Daniel provided well for his wife's essential needs - such as food and shelter - he was far from the ideal partner for her. Sometimes, Daniel felt that they were just waiting for the inevitable breakup to happen, but Shau'ri hadn't given up on him just yet.

He shot an embarrassed half smile in her direction to placate her. In the back of his mind, the voices started to rise up like smoke from a cauldron. "You, you, what are you doing? Just what the hell do you think you're doing? That won't get you anywhere, Daniel. Loser. Geek. Queer. Soon everyone will know about you, then what will you do, you do, do?" They repeated the same questions, over and over, their low murmurs seemingly bouncing off the walls of the stone temple. At their best, they were like an ugly spill underneath a carpet that concealed them. You knew it was there, but it was better not to look at it. Most of the time he was able to keep them under control, but when he was particularly tired, stressed or fatigued, there they were again. Sometimes, they sounded like voices of his birth parents that he'd seen die crushed by immense stones in their own archaeological exhibit; sometimes they were less sympathetic voices such ex-foster parents that he'd displeased or the voice of his ex-lover Steven Rayner who'd taken Daniel's place in the graduate student hierarchy that surrounded Daniel's mentor Dr. Jordan at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago. 

Before coming to Abydos, Daniel had detonated his career like a bomb at a meeting of the Archaeological Society in Washington. His voices had plenty to say about that decision. First, he'd questioned both the work and reputation of two noted experts in his field. Then he'd told his audience that the Ancient Egyptians hadn't built the Great Pyramid. After that, one man, who Daniel recognized as Professor Binder from Princeton, rose to his feet and asked Daniel in a confrontative manner exactly who he thought had built the Great Pyramid or did he think it was aliens. At that, a buzz rose up in the room and laughter spilt out all around him. Inwardly, he began to shake. Tendrils of his voices, long quashed by the strength of his medications, teased at the edges of his consciousness as he stood there blinking into the light of the slides he'd prepared for the presentation. The voices always threatened him with their presence; it was only his brilliance in linguistics and the value of his insights into human behavior and archaeology that had allowed him to battle them again and again. 

He tried to say that no, he had no idea who had actually built the Great Pyramid at Giza, it was simply that the inscriptions on it had been fakes. This time, however, the damage had been irreversible, and nobody had stayed to listen to rest of his talk. It was only as he was putting his papers back into his briefcase that he remembered that Professor Binder's instructor had been a pupil of Weiss, one of the men that he'd just suggested was a liar and a forger. 'Way to go Daniel,' he thought to himself. 

It wasn't that he didn't consider the consequences of his actions, but he couldn't believe that the academic community would actually treat him with such petty vindictiveness. Sarah, his former girlfriend, had attempted to explain the seriousness of his proposed speech to the Archaeological Society before he'd made it. Her concern had been so great that she'd asked his boyfriend, Steven Rayner to talk to him as well. Sarah had been quite kind to him, even after she'd found out that he was sleeping with Steven. Nevertheless, she'd warned Daniel that the other man was something of an academic predator. "You're much too innocent for him, Danny," Sarah had said in a tone of concern. He'd taken her warnings as jealousy, but she'd turned out to be right about Steven. 

However, both Steven and Sarah had tried to stop him from delivering his speech. They came to his room to talk to him about it, just days before he went to the conference. He still remembered Steven's voice trying to reach him. "Daniel, if you do this thing, I can't have anything to do with you afterward," Steven had protested vehemently as he leafed though the text of the speech on Daniel's desk.

"But it's the truth, Steven!" Daniel protested, "Everyone else knows it's true too!"

"Look Daniel, even if you are right about this, you can't tell the assembled body of the Archaeological Society that the most revered authorities on Egyptology, and particularly on the Great Pyramid at Giza, lied about their findings!" Steven talked to him in an annoying and patient way as though he was speaking to a child. Some day, Daniel thought, his students would run in terror from his classroom. Steven already had the pompous and crushing tone of a senior professor.

"Why not, if it's true?" Daniel said in his forthright way.

Steven stood up and began to pace around the room, combing his fingers through his dark hair in a nervous gesture. He was, Daniel realized, supremely uncomfortable with this situation. Then Steven laughed harshly, and held his hand out to Sarah Gardner, inviting her to explain the situation to stubborn Dr. Daniel Jackson. Both he and Daniel respected Sarah's work. "Okay, you won't listen to me. All right, Sarah, you tell him!" Steven said in exasperation. "You explain to Daniel, why not! It isn't enough that you have all these emotional problems, Daniel. You have to make a presentation that will make you out to be the deluded laughing stock of the whole academic community. You'll lose all your grants, your teaching position here. Everything." Steven made a gesture of finality. 

Then he made his final riposte before leaving Daniel alone in his room in the Grad Dorm to finish the presentation that would end his academic career, "Look, it will finish us, you and me, this presentation! Do really want that?"

"Why would my speech do that?" Daniel called after his boyfriend, hurt innocence in his voice, but Steven was already gone.

"Daniel," Sarah drew up a chair up beside him and attempted to make him understand the consequences of his actions. She gestured at his work with her hand and shook her head, "Steven is right. You, you can't make this presentation. It's mad. And you'll lose him as well, you know." Her hand rested on his left forearm.

"Is that what you think, I'm mad? Nuts?" He gave her an incredulous, hurt look.

She met his eyes straight on, "No, of course not. You're just," she tread carefully, "a little different from the usual kind of academic bloke. You're too soft, too trusting. The academic world will eat you alive." She smiled at him hopefully, "Steven, on the other hand, fits right in. He'll just bash off one day and choose some not-so-lucky girl to be Mrs. Professor Steven Rayner. All part of the required image."

"And what do you think that I'll do?" Daniel inquired icily.

"Look Daniel," her hands were still as she spoke, her fingers folded together in just the same way they were when she directed a graduate seminar. Her face was alight with kindness. It shone in the depths of her blue-green eyes, and the lively intelligence of her face. Sarah was, he reflected, the kind of girl he wished that he could love, but she was too wise to try and hold on to a man who really wasn't interested in her. Her piled up red-gold hair matched her freckled white skin. She was flushed with the effort of talking to him honestly. "You're not cut out for the straight life, lovey. You have to know you're not. You need some big strong man to come and sweep you away to life in his cabin in the woods or something."

"So, I'm irreversibly queer, is that what you're saying Sarah?" Daniel's voice took on an angry tone.

"No, Danny love, you're just a gay man, that's all. I don't call my friends queers, and since you're not using that word in some post-critical super-radical Judith Butleresque way, I don't think you should call yourself that either. Look, you're twenty-nine with two PhD's. You're a smart guy. You need to get your problem with who and what you are squared away once and for all. Go to a therapist or something, but your self-loathing has to stop," She took his hand in a gesture of gentle sincerity.

Daniel shook his head, "I, I wish I could love you in that way Sarah. You've everything I should want - smart, attractive, sensitive and..."

"And female, Danny love. I'm a woman. You haven't really loved anyone since that firefighter when you were a teenager. And I think that you should think about your presentation seriously before you scuttle your career," she concluded. 

"I have to do what I think is right, Sarah." Daniel was stubborn, "The evidence I have is incontrovertible. I don't think the consequences of my actions, shall we say, will be quite as dire as you've suggested. Not if the evidence is on my side. And as for the other stuff, maybe when I come back from Washington, I'll deal with it."

"You're a dreamer Daniel Jackson," she told him in a worried tone, before leaving him alone with his work, "And I don't want people to have only the memory of crazy Dr. Daniel Jackson when you could do so much more with your life." 

So, his decision to stay on Abydos surrounded by people who idolized him and a beautiful young woman who had been given to him as a gift had been a no-brainer. His academic career was finished, and his ex-lover Steven Rayner wouldn't even talk to him. The fact that he was half in love with the leader of the expedition, Colonel Jack O'Neill, didn't even factor into his decision. In Daniel's experience, macho Air Force colonels didn't love men, at least not in the way that Daniel wanted or needed. Unfortunately, however, Daniel's life on Abydos was far from problematic.

"What are you doing - doing, doing, doing?" The walls echoed at him. He tried to ignore them, but the voices were tearing at him frantically with their claws.

"Why are you saying this?" he said in a muted whisper, hoping Shau'ri wouldn't say anything. 

He stared into the torchlight, ignoring his wife. The fire of the torch formed faces as he observed it closely. He had a sudden and blinding realization that he was afraid that the faces in the torch might start to speak to him because his anxiety problem had become steadily worse over the last few months. He'd never had hallucinations before, but the overwhelming feelings surging inside of him due to his anxiety made him consider that anything might be possible.

He'd told Shau'ri about the voices inside his head. They'd started when he was around sixteen, and had gotten worse every year until a doctor at the Student Health Clinic at Harvard University had put him on some new experimental anti-psychotic drugs. His boyfriend at that time had insisted on taking him to see the doctor after a really bad episode one night. The drugs had helped, but he didn't like their side effects. They made him feel dopey and slow in the mornings, a situation that he tried to remedy with several cups of really strong coffee. 

From time to time, Daniel attempted to get off the drugs, but his problem always eventually drove him back to the doctors for either more or different drugs. By the time he'd gone to Abydos, he'd been on at least fifteen different medications. Some of them had more serious side effects than the others, but none of them were perfect. He'd thought that maybe he could do without them, but the experiment on Abydos in cutting back on his drugs hadn't been going well. 

For the first six months on his new home, he was fine, although his relationship with his young wife was far from perfect. By the end of that time, Shau'ri had found out that Daniel had brought a large supply of medicine with him in the bottom of his knapsack, and that the medicine seemed to be linked to his state of mind. That supply was almost all gone now. In fact, it had only been by doling out his drugs in ever decreasing amounts that he'd been able to manage at all. However, it seemed to him that Shau'ri actually understood the seriousness of his condition. 

Their marriage was rapidly degenerating into a story of repeated recriminations, rejections and anger - a state of affairs made increasingly worse by the voices inside his head that drove him even further away from any physical contact with his wife. The guilt he felt about marrying her, a woman who'd been given to him as a present, was tearing him apart. The simple truth was he'd known of no way to give her back politely, and he had nowhere else to go anyway. He wondered if she'd expected nights of unending passion with him. She'd certainly hinted as much, and she'd been sorely disappointed. 

"Then what did you do it for, Daniel, Daniel, Daniel?" The walls seemed to echo at him, taunting him with the problems he faced in his physical relationship with his beautiful young wife. His anger at the voices spilled over into a reaction, a sure sign that his anxiety was worsening as the days passed.

"I didn't know what would happen!" He yelled aloud at them, angry that the voices had thought that he'd actually wanted to harm Shau'ri by marrying her. Suddenly, he was aware that the voice was inside, not outside of him, but it was too late.

"Dan'yel," Shau'ri quickly came over to his side. She responded patiently, stroking his hair, obviously concerned by the faraway look in his eyes, "There's no one here. You are frightening me. Why do you not come into the house to dinner? You spend each night in the temple working and talking to the shadows, instead of being with me. Do I not please you, my husband?"

"I'm sorry," he stuttered, hugging himself nervously, "I thought that I heard someone else speaking to me."

"Always the voices," Shau'ri sighed at him, "Dan'yel, listen to me." She bent over and pulled the quill out of his hands. She took his hands in her own and met his eyes straight on, "My love, your voices are getting stronger as the supply of medicine you brought with you from beyond the Chapp'ai diminishes. We are going to have to do something about this."

He was startled, although he thought that he shouldn't have been. She was a perceptive and intelligent woman, a woman with whom he should be happy to spend the rest of life. Daniel shook his head, "Shau'ri, I'm sorry. I, I haven't exactly been what you planned on, have I? You want babies and a husband to provide them, don't you? That's not really me, is it?"

Shau'ri smoothed his ruffled hair, "I love you my Dan'yel. Men such as you in my tribe, the ones who hear voices are Kesh'ki, touched by the Gods. But they don't often make good husbands."

"The Kesh'ki. No, I don't want to be Kesh'ki." He said it vehemently. He understood what she was saying to him. He'd heard it before on Earth; it was just that here there was a different word for it. It was strange that even among Shau'ri's people, they recognized him as different. The Kesh'ki were those who were touched by the Gods in order to speak the truth. They were seen as genderless beings that were neither male nor female. The men usually appealed to other men, and sometimes bonded with them like a wife. Less frequently, there were female Kesh'ki who fought and hunted with the men and took a woman for a mate.

It all amounted to the same thing; he was a failure as a man. He was a queer, like he'd always been - effeminate, weak, unable to fight back at life, caught up in webs of deception and intrigue even when he told the truth. He'd fought this battle so long he didn't want to give into this inevitable fate. Some of the men he'd been with had been proud to be gay, but he wasn't proud. Sarah Gardner had been right; he had a fundamental problem with who and what he was. He told himself that it was all right for other men to be gay, but the truth was that he thought that being gay made him less of a man. He wanted desperately to be an ordinary straight man with a wife and children. He knew, however, after over just a year of living with a woman who asked for almost nothing from him, that the goal of being a father and a husband was beyond him. He was fatally flawed.

Many nights on Abydos, Daniel spent his time staring up at the constellations in the night sky that gleamed like diamonds through the deep clear blackness. He often slept alone outside by the campfire, and Shau'ri would find him there in the morning. From her long silences after these nights, he knew that she wasn't happy with him. 

As she stood before him now, he could tell from the proud uplift of her head that something was bothering her, something more than the fact that he was hearing voices. "What else is going on Shau'ri?" He asked her, observing the narrowing of her eyes.

She nodded and drew a small, light rectangular box out from behind her back. "I came to tell you that the boys who have been guarding the Chappa'ai since we unburied it almost a month ago, have intercepted this package. I don't know what it is, Dan'yel. Skaara told me to come and get you as soon as he saw it. He said you would know what to do." 

He laughed when he saw it, punching at his hand with his fist in triumph. There was something he needed to show Jack. This message was definitely from Jack; he would probably head a team from Earth to Abydos very shortly. He didn't really want to leave Abydos, but Jack would know the right thing to do. Daniel's hands shook with excitement as he held the small box. "See they're tissues, Shau'ri. I can use them for my allergies." He pulled a wad from the box and blew his nose on them. In addition to his other problems, Daniel suffered from acute allergies and asthma. He had medicine with him for this as well; he often needed to use it during the terrible sandstorms on Abydos. His eyes gleamed with remembrances of how the first team from Earth to Abydos had teased him about his allergies. 

Shau'ri gave the box a disapproving glance, "It's from that soldier, O'Neill - the man with the dead, dark eyes, the one that Skaara worships. That man, the soldier, he sometimes looks at you like a woman, Dan'yel," she added, a carefully cultivated dose of malice in her tone, "Is that what you want, Dan'yel? To be his woman?" 

"His woman?" Daniel considered her words in a puzzled manner. Clearly, she'd misinterpreted something in Jack's attitude toward him. Jack treated him affectionately, but that certainly didn't mean that Jack cared about him in that way. Daniel prided himself on his gaydar, being able to pick out the gay men in any crowd. It had never been wrong before. Jack O'Neill just didn't ping the old gaydar in any way, and he told his wife so, "Shau'ri, you couldn't be further from the truth. In my world, soldiers don't love other men. The military has rules about that kind of thing."

"You are so innocent my Dan'yel!" Her dark eyes narrowed, "It would be far better for you to stay here and father children with me. You can have men sometimes if that is what you want, and a family too. Many of the men in this village and in others as well have more than simply one wife. They often take another man or woman as a concubine. Surely, you know this. A man of your prestige would have no difficulty having an extra concubine of either sex, if you desired one. Their first wife often helps them to make this choice. I would help you to make this choice, if you so desired it."

"I know that some of the men in the village have more than one wife or sometimes have another man living with the family. But that's unusual!" Daniel was awkward, and suddenly unsure of himself. He was aware that marriages on Abydos often included male or female concubines in the marital arrangements, but he'd never once considered doing this. It went against his deeply ingrained ideals about love and romance. 

"It isn't unheard of," Shau'ri said simply.

Daniel shook his head forcefully, "This kind of thing isn't customary where I come from. Men only live with one woman. I wouldn't dream of putting you in this position. I wouldn't bring another woman into the household and I don't want to have a male concubine in my household either! I have enough difficulties just dealing with one wife." He rejected her suggestion firmly.

"Are you sure that is what your heart says, my Dan'yel?" Shau'ri tilted her head inquiringly.

"What do you take me for Shau'ri?" Daniel queried her in disbelief. She couldn't think he'd do such a thing. He added, "I'm not that kind of man!" He wanted her to understand that he wasn't a faithless husband who'd would cheat on his wife or take a concubine at the first opportunity. Besides, he wondered, how would doing this help his already difficult situation?

"So you tell me, my husband, but I would rather pick the man for you than have him picked for me," she commented wisely.

"I'm not going to leave you, Shau'ri. And I'm not going to pick another person to live in our house. I just want you." Daniel reassured her, still looking at the box.

"So what should we do with this thing?" She gave it a disdainful poke. She asked Daniel, half-hoping that he'd say that they should rebury the Chappa'ai and forget about the strange box. Pondering, Daniel turned the box over and over in his hands several times. A smile touched his lips. It seemed to answer all her fears about the depth of Daniel's feelings for the box's sender.

Observing his reactions to the box, Shau'ri's eyes widened in alarm, "Dan'yel?" Her voice was querulous with an unspoken question. She grasped his arm tightly. Then she drew herself up proudly, "Are you going to leave us?" Her dark eyes were damp with tears.

He felt his usual helplessness in dealing with her, "No. Of course not, we're married. I made vows to you. I wouldn't break them. Where I go, you go. Tsh, don't cry, Shau'ri!" 

"Not always so married, my husband," she responding, giving him a sample of more of her simple homemade wisdom, tears still dropping from her dark eyes onto the sleeve of her robe. 

He stared at her beautiful dark eyes, and he considered the different effect that a different set of dark eyes could have on him. Here was his wife, a beautiful woman so clearly in love with him - and all he could think of were new ways to avoid having sexual contact with her - a predicament that almost any other man in the village would have envied. He remembered Steven's dark eyes, the dark eyes of the first man he'd ever loved and the secretive dark eyes of Jack O'Neill, the man who'd sent the tissue box. He realized that he was hurting her, and that he should never have married her, but it was too late for regrets. He intended to honor his pledges to her and to her family. He really didn't want to be gay. 

"Look at this!" He said as he tried to distract her from her unhappiness with him. He took a soft wad of the paper and dabbed at her tears, "See Shau'ri, they can absorb your tears." He softly touched her face. She smiled up at him trustingly.

"You're so sweet, my Dan'yel. So gentle in all your ways, so tender and kind." Her voice became husky with need, and he knew what that meant. However, Daniel had no intention of being physically intimate with her at this time. It couldn't have been more inconvenient for him. She moved forward to touch her lips to his, but he drew away, retreating back into his thoughts. 

"We have things to do right now," he told her as he hugged himself in anxiety. It was a bad habit, and it told his wife everything she needed to know about his deep insecurities.

Shau'ri lifted her head and her eyes flashed with anger, "Why do I not please you?" She demanded, "I can count the number of times that we've been together as man and wife on two hands, and even my father has noticed that you are frequently absent from our bed. You spend your nights working in this stupid room, trying to unlock the secrets of the old gods or sleeping by the fire staring up into the night sky. You are even gentle with the small striped wild cats that Ra left behind. You leave food for them outside our doorway. But when I ask you to show me this same kindness, to look at me and love me, you do nothing except hug yourself. I wish I had been given in marriage to my former betrothed, Kensetti. At least, he would have slept in my bed."

"If that's what you want Shau'ri, I won't stop you," he said dully.

"Want?" She seized his shoulders and shook him. She was a strong woman, and the force of her passion temporarily rattled his teeth before he pulled away from her grasp. "Want? Do you think I want the shame of being a woman who was rejected by her husband for another man, a man who has become Kesh'ki? Or the dishonor of being an unfaithful wife? There will be no shame for you, but for me you know what it means. I doubt that even Kensetti would marry a woman like that. There is honor and privilege in being married to you, even when you reject me time and time again. I can't leave you." She spat out the words, fear gripping her heart.

"You could divorce me and marry Kensetti before anything happens, Shau'ri," he suggested. She looked up into his face, the honesty on his features seemed to make her stop and hesitate. He could hear his heart thudding in his chest. 

"You would do this for me, Dan'yel?" She asked in a tone of disbelief. Women among the Abydonians were viewed as possessions. She belonged to Daniel, had been given to him as a piece of property. He'd gained an understanding of her position through many discussions with Shau'ri about their marriage, and this was the reason that he'd stayed with her all this time. He was reluctant to make a bad situation even worse for her. Unfortunately, it was also a very small community and gossip traveled quickly. His behavior, at this point, was being noticed and that affected how people perceived and treated his wife. On Abydos, normally husbands didn't consider the feelings or needs of their wives if the marriage wasn't working out. It was viewed as the woman's fault. However, there was a possibility that if he allowed Shau'ri to publicly divorce him and remarry another man, any blame for a marital breakdown would be attached to him. 

"Yes," he told her honestly, "this mess is partly my fault. I shouldn't have married you."

"No, Dan'yel, I wish to wait a little. I will think over what you have said." She looked him over carefully. Despite his failure to fulfill his role as a husband during their time together, she obviously needed to reflect on this situation. "You are so vulnerable, and yet so strong. Perhaps, you're just over-excited by this message that has come to us from through the Chappa'ai. We need to be sure that this is the right course of action."

He nodded an acknowledgement at her words; then Daniel moved over to his workbench inside the immense room where he was working on the Cartouche inscriptions. This was where he kept his tools. He located a leather case with drawing and magnifying tools underneath a roll of papyrus-like paper. Inside the case was the last magic marker that he had, a thick black one. The others had long since dried out in the desert climate of Abydos where sand and grit found its way into the most unexpected crevasses on your the body or into any jar of cream or ointment. As he wrote a message in large letters on the side of the box, a smile played on his lips. "There!" he told Shau'ri, "When they read this, they'll know it came from me. I'll go and send it back to Earth through the Chappa'ai."

"Maybe we should ignore it, my husband," Shau'ri protested in alarm and grabbed at his arm. No matter what she'd just told him about going to Earth with him, she knew if he returned to his own world he was lost to her. If he stayed here, there was still a chance that he'd finally allow her to pick a male concubine for him that might make the marriage more tolerable. Then she could retain the honor of being his wife. 

A frown creased Daniel's brow. There was no way he could ignore a message that had come through the Stargate. He understood that she was afraid of losing him, but he couldn't take the chance that a lack of response from their end would be misinterpreted. He waved his hand, contradicting her, "No Shau'ri, that might make the people from my planet believe that the Goa'uld had returned here to enslave the people and take hostages just like they did in the past. They might send a bomb through the Chappa'ai to us, like the one we used to destroy Ra's ship."

"You want to see O'Neill," her mouth pursed with annoyance as she turned away.

He sighed, "Shau'ri, I'm going to tell you this again so that you understand. There's nothing between Jack and me. I don't expect you to understand this, but there's no way that a man like him would have anything to do with other men, particularly sexually." He kissed her forehead, to reinforce his point about O'Neill. He didn't understand why she was jealous of the tall, enigmatic soldier. "We'll wait for our evening meal so that they can share it with us. Jack wouldn't be coming unless it was serious."

"You seem very sure that it's O'Neill, who is coming!" She gave him another unreadable glare. 

He shook his head empathically, "It isn't personal, and it's business. He isn't coming to see me."

"Maybe, he won't come at all," Shau'ri's voice was hopeful.

He waved the box at her, "Only Jack would've known to send this. He sent this because of my allergies because I would respond to this signal. So, either he's coming himself or he's sending someone else in his place, and he's supervising the mission from Stargate Command."

"Very well husband," she responded dutifully and left him to go and oversee the evening meal preparations. 

Daniel went over to the Abydos chamber that held the Stargate to send the box back through the Stargate to Earth. After discovering the Cartouche Room, he'd tried to program different addresses into the Stargate to find out whether any of them worked. 

He punched in the address for Earth, and sent his gift off with feelings of trepidation. He explained what he was doing to Skaara, and the other young men who were guarding the Gate. Then he sat down on a pile of rocks behind the pillars that surrounded the Stargate in quiet contemplation. He'd instructed the young men to conceal themselves behind these pillars as well in case the tissue box proved to be a ruse. It seemed that he'd been sitting there forever. Finally, when he got up to stretch his long legs outside, something happened.

He was standing outside, observing the sandstorm when one of Skaara's best friends, Sat'ti, jogged up to him in a state of great excitement with the news that they were holding a group of soldiers at bay by the Gate. Skaara had reported that their visitors appeared to be led by 'O'Near', as Skaara pronounced the name of the tall American soldier who'd once scolded him for playing with his machine gun and had given him a lighter as a present. Apparently, Sat'ti said, there was a strange looking woman soldier with them. Daniel could well imagine that any woman soldier would look strange to the young Abydonians, who were accustomed to women with long hair and robes. Their women were deferential in the attitude toward men. Any woman wearing what were ostensibly men's clothes and who carried men's weaponry would indeed be viewed as strange.

Knowing that the boys would follow his instructions to the letter and only exchange gunfire if and when the team from Earth tried to leave the Abydos chamber, he quickly turned around. He was just in time. One of the soldiers, he thought that it was Lou Ferretti, noticed a boy dodging down behind a pillar. Ferretti made some comment and stood up to get a better look at the 'little soldier'. When Ferretti moved forward, a couple of the boys fired some warning shots over the heads of the team from Earth. As Daniel moved nimbly to his feet, he caught a glimpse of Jack who had jumped up defensively. In that instant, Daniel came out from behind a pillar to stop further weapons' fire before an accident occurred.

"Cha'har'ai," he yelled at the boys and raised his arms above his head to let them know that the visitors were friends, "Cha'har'ai." He yelled again. He eyed the team sprawled out on the ground, still recovering from the impact of Gate travel. "Lower your guns," he shouted. The team members looked deferentially at Jack. Smiling, O'Neill tossed his weapon to the ground while the others followed suit.

Daniel pivoted back to stare at Colonel Jack O'Neill, right here in the flesh. He was just as slim and tall as Daniel remembered him, with that light brown hair and megawatt smile that he reserved almost exclusively for children. Daniel would have given anything to see the burning intensity of those chocolate brown eyes focused on him for a change. 

"Hello, Jack well welcome back," Daniel's forehead crinkled in thought, hoping for a sign of acknowledgement from the other man. Damn, Daniel thought, Jack was such a self-confident bastard. For a tall man, he walked with a careless grace usually reserved for dancers. His dark eyes glinted with an inner fire, and the chinstrap from his helmet hung loose as he strode forward on his long lanky legs. 

"Daniel, how're you doing?" He said with a smile, not even looking in Daniel's direction. Instead, he looked right past him at the young dark-haired man standing right behind Daniel. Jack's smile widened and he showed his teeth. "Skaara," Jack pronounced the name with delight. He hit Daniel's shoulder hard as he edged past him; Jack's body radiated warmth and vitality. There was an insouciant grace in the swing of his desert camouflage clad hips as he moved across the chamber. 

God, Daniel thought, only Jack could make his BDU's look better than a G-string. He looked at Jack's back and his eyes wandered southward. Suddenly, the room seemed hot and restrictive. His mouth went dry as he watched the reunion of O'Neill and the young man who was apparently the source of Jack's greatest pleasure on Abydos. At just that moment, Daniel wondered if it would be rude to kick Skaara's behind but the best entertainment was yet to come. "O'Neill," Skaara's lips arched a wide smile of delight, giving the military leader's name a distinctive and charming pronunciation, "I did not think to be seeing you again."

Kawalsky and Ferretti greeted Daniel in their usual teasing manner. Kawalsky presented Daniel with a small tissue package with a flourish, a tribute to Daniel's bout of allergies and asthma that had been activated after his first trip through the Stargate to Abydos. A meaningful look passed between the two soldiers; they'd always thought he was weird, Daniel recalled, a real geek. 

On their last mission, they had watched Daniel in disbelief as he quaffed down his mega dose of pills at night followed by his asthma medications, and they'd noticed that the archaeologist sometimes talked to himself. Anxiety and worry over his situation on Abydos and his career catastrophe back on Earth had made it hard for Daniel to resist the tendency to talk to his voices when he was trying to solve a problem. None of this had prevented him from finding the key to unlocking the secrets of the Stargate after Dr. Catherine Langford had drafted him outside the disastrous conference at the Archaeological Society in Washington. 

His emotional problems had put most of the soldiers off, but O'Neill didn't seemed to care. He didn't care if Daniel took a legion of pills to stop his anxiety disorder, or if he occasionally talked to apparently non-existent people. He'd told Daniel why one night just before they'd returned to Earth. They were sleeping under the stars by the campfire, "We've all got ghosts for crying out loud!" Jack said as he drew patterns in the sand at his feet, "Just cause you talk to yours. It doesn't matter to me. I've done a lot of things that I'm not proud of - I worked in Special Ops for a long time. You can't do that without doing some ugly stuff. You've had a bad time, losing your parents and all when you were a kid. It's all in your file. You've got your reasons. The way I see it is, it's obvious you're brilliant. You get a little more in more in one department, and you lose a little in another."

They'd been drinking quite a lot, and Daniel had felt curious about Jack O'Neill and decided to spend some time in his company by the evening fire. O'Neill, as it turned out, had some unblended single malt in a large flask in the bottom of his pack. He'd explained his theory of why he carried this beverage in his flask to Daniel. "You don't have to mix it with anything but water or you can drink it straight, and it's just fine. You can buy it almost anywhere and besides I like it." 

Daniel thought it made sense. Still, he didn't even attempt to try and keep up with Jack as he downed one drink after another. Apparently, it was some kind of fancy single malt that Daniel couldn't even begin to appreciate. 'After all,' Jack added seriously, 'if you're in a bad spot somewhere, you don't want your last drink to be some kind of unaged, blended plonk instead of the good stuff!' Daniel nursed one drink for a long period while Jack downed several shots quickly and efficiently. At first, Jack didn't even look drunk, a condition that was remedied after several more shots. 

"So," Daniel said waving his cup, "What's your problem? You're obviously some kind of special soldier. What department are you short on? It looks like you've got it figured out. You've got a wife and I've seen a picture of your kid."

"I had a kid," Jack's voice emphasized the "had" in the sentence, and cold shiver ran down Daniel's spine. The other man's eyes softened, "He died. He managed to open the lock box I kept my service revolver in. It was loaded, and well as they say, the rest is history." The comment was flung out in a tone of despair. 'Like me now if you dare,' the gauntlet was cast at Daniel's feet.

Daniel's eyes lit up as he moved closer to O'Neill who was staring moodily into the campfire, his backside planted firmly on a log with his long legs stretched out before him, "You're kidding right?" Daniel asked his new friend.

O'Neill shook his head and tipped the rest of the single malt into his mouth, "Nope, 'fraid not."

"I don't know what to say," Daniel put his hand out to touch Jack, "I'm so sorry."

Jack shrugged his shoulders, casting away any pity. He'd had a lot to drink, and he was behaving in an unusually friendly manner with Daniel. He wasn't dead, which was what he'd expected, and Daniel had been responsible for saving his life. Daniel's problem seemed to make O'Neill more inclined to talk to him. "You know, it's usually hard for me to get close to people. I've seen so many people die. People I've loved, men I cared about and served with. I just never figured anything bad could happen close to home. My wife won't even talk to me, not that I blame her. She hasn't a clue about who I really am. We live in different worlds. So many dirty jobs, and then this." Throwing back his head, he made an expansive gesture at the sky, "Meaning of life stuff, Danny. That woman, Shau'ri she loves you, that's something good for you to hold on to." 

Jack had grabbed hold of Daniel's upper bicep, weaving slightly with the amount of alcohol he'd consumed. Daniel didn't think he'd seen anyone consume quite so much alcohol in one sitting. When they eventually fell asleep by the fire, O'Neill's arm was slung around Daniel's waist. It was still there when Daniel woke up in the morning with the taste of ashes in his mouth. It was, Daniel decided, the best that he was going to get. He'd gone over that night countless times in his mind, wondering if he'd missed some vital clue that he should've picked up about Jack. He doubted it. USAF colonels, he was sure, could not afford to like other men. It was much too risky. 

There was more guffawing by Ferretti and Kawalsky about the tissues they'd brought from Earth for the genius Dr. Daniel Jackson. It brought Daniel's attention back sharply to the present. He straightened his back and ignored the threads of voices in his head that threatened to misdirect him. He turned his head sideways and there was Shau'ri, tucking her way past the pillar into the crook of his arm. Shit, he knew exactly how this looked. O'Neill got a wary expression on his face when he saw her.

Fine, Daniel thought to himself, play it as it lays. He stretched out his arm to accommodate his wife and pulled her in beside him. "Shau'ri don't be shy!" His tone sounded like an order, as though he was that kind of husband, but he could see that Shau'ri was bizarrely pleased by this turn of events. She coolly examined the group that had come through the Gate. Her dark eyes raked over O'Neill's face, searching for a clue in it for the reason that he'd returned to Abydos. It was peculiar, Daniel noticed as he observed the other man, that Jack's dark eyes evaded meeting Shau'ri's although she continued to stare directly at him. 

O'Neill extended a cordial hand to hers in greeting, with his eyes lowered. "Hi, good to see you again," he said with polite reserve. She eyed him with mounting hostility, but she nodded her head, like a queen acknowledging the presence of a hostile power. Obviously, Daniel reflected, she'd been serious about her reservations regarding O'Neill. Daniel couldn't see where her problem with Jack was coming from. Jack began to talk about the precautions that Daniel had taken after unburying the Stargate with a tone of elevated concern. 

Suddenly, a cheery woman's voice broke into Daniel's reverie. "Amazing," it said enthusiastically, "this was what was missing from the dig at Giza. This is how they controlled it. It took us fifteen years and three supercomputers to McGyver a system on Earth. Look how small it is." The woman laughed to herself and bubbled on until Jack's voice stopped her, calling her name. She came over and introduced herself to Daniel as "Doctor Sam Carter" proffering a hand, but was brought up short by Jack's sarcastic voice informing Daniel that he thought that she preferred to be known as "Captain Carter." She seemed slightly chastened, but her effervescent nature quickly reasserted itself. 

Daniel glanced at Jack's expression during Sam Carter's outburst, and he noticed that Jack had rolled his eyes skyward. 'Aw crap, another damned scientist!' Jack's countenance was as easy to read as a book. Well, there was no way was Jack in love with the blonde anyway. Daniel's heart flipped over his chest. Shau'ri's face had a bored expression. Clearly, she didn't consider Captain Carter any risk around him, Daniel thought. He realized that she would have thought that Sam Carter's short yellow hair and pinkish skin made her look unattractive. She was always razzing Daniel, trying to push him into getting some sun on his face so he wouldn't look so white. 

A remark from Jack about hostile aliens brought Daniel's attention back to the matter at hand. "Six hostile aliens came through the Stargate on Earth, four people are dead. One of them's missing." Jack's dark eyes were serious and worried.

"One of them looked like Ra, Daniel," Charlie Kawalsky said by way of explanation.

Daniel shook his head, explaining why it was impossible that the aliens had come from Abydos. As they discussed the possible origin of the strange aliens that had appeared on Earth, Daniel invited the team to share their evening meal while they waited for the sandstorm to dissipate. They moved to another room in the vast network of chambers in the stone pyramid. Daniel smiled and watched Jack's eyes light up as he hinted that he had some idea about where the hostile aliens had come from. 'Point to my side', he thought.

As he sat beside Shau'ri during their evening meal, Daniel watched Jack carefully. He drew Skaara aside, and made him bring in cups of the alcohol he'd distilled on the planet. He laughed along with everyone else when O'Neill spat up nearly the entire cup that he'd been given to sample. However, that took him back to that night by the fire when Jack had shared his whiskey with him, just over a year ago. Jack, he knew, would hate the moonshine that he'd made; he'd find it raw and unfinished. He probably had some unblended single malt whiskey in the bottom of his pack, if he could be induced to bring it out and share it with him. 

Daniel was considering how he could bring this possibility about, his blue eyes glinting at Jack's brown ones. Of course, he'd have to find some pretext to get rid of Ferretti, Kawalsky and Captain Carter. Getting rid of Carter might, Daniel considered, prove more difficult than it first appeared. She stuck to Jack's side like a limpet, and also seemed to be intent on impressing Daniel for some reason he couldn't really fathom. Maybe it was his academic qualifications, because in spite of all his eccentric ideas, his academic qualifications were impressive. 

One of the boys said something in Daniel's ear. He rose to his feet, and dusted the stray crumbs off his long robes. "The sandstorm's over," he informed the team from the SGC. Then he turned back to his wife to tell her in Abydonian that he was going to take the team over to see the Cartouche Room, but she responded with vehement annoyance to his announcement. "Why are you taking him over there?" Her eyes flashed at him, and she tossed her head in Jack's general direction. Daniel decided to ignore her. As a gesture of peace, he leaned over and brushed his lips cursorily over her forehead. 

However, Shau'ri was having none of it. She placed her hands behind her husband's head and guided his lips to her own. She planted her lips firmly on his, giving him an intense deep-tongued kiss. It wasn't as though he was going to fight this in public, he thought. "Goodbye, my Dan'yel." She stated loudly in a meaningful and clear voice. Loud hoots and appreciative laughter from the Abydonians in the temple echoed off the walls around them. In spite of his strangeness, Daniel was a great favorite of the local people. 

Daniel drew back from his wife with an awkward blush. Sometimes later, he thought about that moment as prophetic. She'd marked him, in their final moments together, as her territory - an action she'd never felt necessary to take at any other time. He gave Jack a meaningful glance. It was show and tell time.

"So, what's all this about, Daniel?" Jack asked.

"Well, you'll see." Daniel seemed distracted for a moment, "No I'm not going to tell them that," he added in a low tone. 

"Who are you talking to, Dr. Jackson?" Samantha Carter ventured. Her bright, overly attentive eyes seemed to peer into his soul as though she'd found something distinctly wanting about him. Had he ever been as fresh and unspoiled as she was at this minute? No, he'd always been slightly crazy "Danny Jackson", the weird kid in the class with the best marks in spite of every obstacle in his way, the one who'd been told by the teacher "that none of us are special here you know" when he asked for extra work, the one who got manhandled so hard at recess outside that he made it a point to become a library monitor in order to stay inside, the one who had no parents to protect him from the worst cruelties of the other children. He always felt alone - except it seemed when Jack was around - but he wondered what Jack would say if he realized the full extent of Daniel's feelings about him. Surely, he'd be revolted. 

Now, however Daniel noticed that Jack had knocked Sam Carter's foot with his boot, "He wants to show us something, Captain," he told her raising his eyebrows. "Ferretti, you stay here with the rest of the team. Kawalsky, you come with me. The Doc wants to show us some discovery he's made at the other temple. It's not too far from here, but I want you to stay here with the boys and guard the Gate in case something comes through."

"Yes sir," Ferretti responded.

"It should be a piece of cake," Kawalsky responded, "It looks quiet here."

"Remember last time. Don't take anything for granted," Jack advised in his cautious manner.

They left the temple and ventured out onto the sand steps of the pyramid. "Boy, I can't say that I missed this place!" Kawalsky observed to Daniel, overlooking the dry, hot sand desert from the top of the stones steps of the huge Abydos pyramid. 

Captain Samantha Carter lingered behind with the Colonel, who was guarding their six. Daniel heard her clear her throat to get her CO's attention, "You have something to say, Captain?" Jack asked her in an amused tone.

Daniel listened intently. "This Daniel Jackson, he's pretty odd sir," he heard Sam Carter say finally, after a silence of a few moments. He winced.

Jack gently took her elbow and propelled her back into a corner, "Something wrong?" Daniel turned around to ask Jack and Captain Sam Carter. The Captain appeared alarmed, and Jack, he appeared - well, the only way Daniel could describe it was that it was the kind of look a person gets on their face when someone tells them that they hate your favorite pet. Not because they're allergic to your dog, but just because they happen to hate all dogs. 'Great', he thought unenthusiastically, 'Jack thinks of me like a pet. Fabulous.' 

"Nope, not a thing," Jack smiled cheerfully and waved at him, "Just need to speak to the Captain here, for a minute. You go on ahead, we'll catch you up in just a minute."

"All right Jack," Daniel responded warily. Then added in an undertone, "Don't worry so much, it's not going to be a problem." He felt that he could cheerfully smack himself on the head at this point. His anxiety was making it impossible not to respond to the voices, but that was exactly what he needed to do, not react.

Major Charlie Kawalsky, on the other hand, was behaving as though he was completely accustomed to Daniel's odd behavior. Kawalsky knew that Daniel had some psychological problems that were controlled by medication the first time they went to Abydos. As Daniel saw it, Jack had given him the heads up about how they were going to handle this problem, should it emerge again. Daniel cringed inwardly at how he must appear to the team that had come through the Stargate at this point - like a crazy man desperately in need of medication - instead of a competent archaeologist with an important discovery to reveal. 

"Not doing so good, Daniel?" Kawalsky casually asked Daniel.

"Right," Daniel winced, "This is worse than having a family who knows everything about you. I'm not used to this. The talking to myself thing; it's much worse when I'm nervous."

"You got nothing to be nervous about around us," Kawalsky assured him, "The Colonel, he thinks the world of you. You saved his life and all. And you really pulled it off for the team the last time we were here. The Colonel told me to tell you, not to worry about a thing. The Colonel was prepared for this, and we brought some medication for you. Doc Fraiser back at the SGC gave it to us and she's the best."

"Gee thanks," Daniel commented in an ironic tone. What was he supposed to say?

"Hey," Kawalsky commented, "There's no shame in taking help where it's offered or when you need it."

"I'm sorry," Daniel was instantly contrite, "I'm just not used to anyone looking out for me."

"Well," Kawalsky commented, "I think you'd better get used to it. The Colonel's always been a mother hen with his men. Lots of them have had plenty of problems too, Daniel, as bad as if not worse than yours. I've seen guys completely lose it in combat, pinned down under fire for days on end or shut up in solitary in a jail. Completely gonzo, but that's not you. Just to let you know you're not alone."

Behind them O'Neill and Carter were involved in an earnest discussion in an undertone. Daniel caught the tail end of what O'Neill said to her as they jogged up to meet them. "He's way smarter than me. He's a really good man. He saved my life on the last expedition. You'll never find an archaeologist who has the background he has to do the job he does."

"Yes sir," Carter said dutifully. 

Daniel started to ramble on nervously about how he'd discovered the Cartouche Room. Jack went and stood beside him, "So, I figured there had to be more to this place. So I started exploring - um just the area around the town and the pyramid at first and several months later I found this place. Captain, doctor you're going to love this."

They went into a long darkened underground passage and followed the tunnel until they came to a vast room that was lighted by a number of oil torches. Bright cartouches painted in gold leaf emblazoned the walls all around them. "Oh my God!" Carter exclaimed without thinking, "This must be the archaeological find of the century!"

"If we could tell anyone," Daniel commented aloud sadly, "But yes, I'm sure it would be, if it wasn't all restricted information."

"So, Daniel," Jack questioned him, "You've had a chance to translate this yet?"

"I think so," Daniel said quietly. Whispers edged into his consciousness, "No," Daniel said aloud, "he doesn't want to hear about that!" He nearly bit his tongue, but it was too late, the comment was out. Captain Sam Carter shot another look of concern in Jack's direction, but he ignored her. 

"Well, why don't you let me be the judge of that," O'Neill said in a gentle tone.

Daniel explained that the Cartouche room contained thousands of records of seven character Stargate addresses, and that he'd been able to decipher many of the glyphs on the walls directly from the night sky in Abydos. This suggested that there were other Stargates on other planets across the universe to which Gate travel was possible. 

Sam Carter shook her blonde head at him in strong disagreement, pointing out that she'd tried hundred of permutations of the symbols on the Gate from Earth and that they hadn't worked. Daniel nodded along with her, telling her he'd tried the same thing. "Anyway," Daniel added, "I don't know anything about astrophysics, but isn't the universe continually expanding? If this chart or address book doesn't work, then where did your Ra look-alike come from?"

A smile of comprehension spread over Sam Carter's features. In an excited tone, she started to consider how she could use a computer to fix this problem and get the Stargate on Earth working with an adjustment to the addresses. It was obvious, she said, that any civilization complex enough to build the Gate would be able to compensate for several thousand years of stellar drift.

Jack ruminated over this information. "So why does the Gate work between Abydos and Earth?" he asked her.

"Well, that's just it sir." Carter exclaimed, "Abydos is probably the destination closest to Earth. In a few hundred years, it probably won't work either."

When Daniel thought back to the day of his reunion with Jack on Abydos, he still felt a sense of overwhelming guilt and shame even after a gap of so many years. After they returned to the Abydos Chamber, they'd discovered that an unidentified Goa'uld from another planet had kidnapped Shau'ri and Skaara. Daniel's guilt over unburying the Stargate, guilt because he'd felt that he needed to see Jack, guilt because he felt that he needed to return to Earth, was only finally mitigated by a new understanding of his role in Shau'ri's life. Why had he married a woman who'd been given to him as a gift? Why had he decided to stay on Abydos instead of going home and reweaving the threads of his academic career? He didn't understand the answers to these questions until much later. This new understanding would finally help him to rebuild his life after Abydos, but that was several years in the future. 

Instead, a terrible realization came crashing down on Daniel's head when they left the Cartouche Room and returned to the Abydos chamber in the Great Pyramid, which housed the Stargate. Dust from the invasion of the J'affa soldiers and their master, the unidentified Goa'uld, hadn't even settled. All around the chamber, you could hear the sounds of wailing men and women bemoaning the fate of their loved ones. They'd believed that the days of this kind of brutality were long behind them. Pillars had been toppled over, and small personal trinkets crushed under the feet of the uncaring J'affa soldiers. Daniel was horrified. How could the simple action of unburying and opening up the Chappa'ai so long after Ra had been killed have led to this? What force could have caused this catastrophe to occur?

For several years after he returned to Earth from Abydos, Daniel described his time on Abydos as a period of relative contentment. He'd say, he felt like he belonged on Abydos, and it was true that his bond with the Abydonian people was special. It made it difficult for Daniel to leave the planet behind. They accepted him as who he was. Back on Earth, he felt the forces of judgment gather from his first moments through the Stargate. It would be several years until he'd find something on Earth with which to replace his relationship to the Abydonian people. 

That day, as he searched through the ruins, Daniel remembered saying, "I should have left the barricade up," over and over in a stunned voice. Sure, things weren't going well between him and Shau'ri, but this wasn't the way that he'd imagined it ending. Jack informed Daniel that he had orders to bring him back to Earth with the team. Daniel considered fighting about this with Jack, but he thought that he had a responsibility to help to get Shau'ri and Skaara back to their home. He could only do this if he could help with the rescue mission from Earth. He followed behind the team of soldiers in a state of misery and contrition.

There was a certain sense of urgency about all of this. One man from Earth had been killed in the attack and Lou Ferretti was badly injured. Once Ferretti was treated, they hoped that he'd be able to identify the Stargate address from which the intruders had come. That would lead them to Shau'ri and Skaara. Jack promised Daniel that he'd find Shau'ri for him. Daniel thought, 'If you only knew how I really feel.'

Waves of shame washed over him as he followed the team back through the Stargate to Earth. Before he'd left Abydos, Daniel explained to the young boys who were left how they needed to bury the Stargate for a period of one year. He told them to tell Kasuf, Shau'ri and Skaara's father, how at the end of that time he'd try and bring his children back to him. He thought about how he felt about Jack, and the shame became stronger. He tracked behind Jack in his long robes, unsure what he was supposed to do to help in this situation. Before he knew it, they were stumbling down the ramp of the SGC, and a metal iris clicked into place. 

Hammond, the new general who'd taken over from West, was there to personally ensure that no unwanted aliens came through the Gate behind them. He cast an icy gaze in Daniel's direction. Daniel could feel himself shrivel under those steely blue eyes. He attempted to speak to General Hammond, and he quietly requested a place on the rescue team that would spearhead the effort to find Shau'ri and Skaara. His request met with a chilly response from the General who called him "Jackson" in an angry tone of voice.

He found himself being pushed in the direction of the infirmary by the team. One set of medics had met them in the Gate Room, and was taking care of Ferretti under the direction of a male doctor by the name of Warner with whom Daniel was unfamiliar. Jack watched the medical team work on Ferretti for about fifteen minutes, then satisfied that everything humanly possible was being done to help him, he shifted his gaze to Daniel. He took the other man by the elbow and steered him to another room in the infirmary. A small woman with reddish-brown hair and bright brown eyes was working on something in the back room. Jack smiled at her.

"I've brought you another patient to torture, Doc Napoleon. This is Dr. Janet Fraiser. The best damn needle shover in the business," Jack nodded at Daniel by way of introduction, "This is Dr. Jackson from Abydos."

"I didn't see anyone last time I was here," Daniel protested, "there were was some guy who looked at my eyes, but there was no staff like this."

She was small and neat with pretty dark brown bobbed hair, large beautiful eyes and soft regular features. "Well," the small doctor said cheerily, "I'm afraid I'm going to have to flash a light in your eyes again. You don't mind if I call you Daniel, do you?" He shook his head and she continued her barrage of information, "I sent some medication with the team for you if you needed it." Her head tilted from one side to another like she was a robin examining a particularly juicy worm.

"We never got to give it to him, Doc," Jack said in an undertone, "Things just happened way too fast. But Daniel was talking to himself a fair bit. I think the anxiety is really bothering him."

"I want to speak for myself, Jack," Daniel reprimanded his friend. He looked up and saw a pair of hurt brown eyes, "I need to talk to the doctor, myself, Jack," he added in a more gentle tone.

"If you'd give us some time, Colonel." Janet Fraiser nodded up at Jack.

"Okay, I'll go and check up on Ferretti," Jack glanced away.

Daniel felt like he could have bitten off his tongue as he watched Jack's BDU's disappear around the corner, "I think I've hurt him," he told her, feeling irritated with himself.

"He'll recover Daniel, he's tough," Janet tilted her head looking at him with her bright, soft brown eyes. "But I'd like to talk about you. The voices have been getting worse haven't they?" She leafed through his blue medical file, and then glanced up at him. "It says here that you've gone off your meds several different times. Can you tell me why?"

"Yes, look," Daniel started to explain something to her and then changed his mind, "Can I see that file? I'm tired of people having files on me that I can't look at."

"Okay," Janet put the blue folder down for him to examine. She leafed back a page to show him the contents, "See, here's a record of the long list of anti-psychotic drugs you've been on. I'd like to try Quietiapine and a new experimental drug that's a relative of Prozac without the side effects. That other stuff is like using a bazooka to kill a fly, too much, too often. So why do you keep going off your medication?"

Daniel shrugged at her helplessly, "They make me feel either dopey or too revved up. Sometimes, I can hardly get any sleep with some drugs and then with others I sleep all the time. Then some of them have really problematic sexual side effects."

"Lowered libido?" She sighed, "Well, this shouldn't do that in quite the same way. But I think you should take some Ativan in the meantime to combat the anxiety disorder."

"I don't want to take anything that's addictive!" Daniel responded quickly, "Ativan's addictive."

Janet put the file down and gave him an admonishing glance. "Look here, Daniel, you're not taking it for a joy ride. You've bottomed out. You need to do something about your problem. You're taking the drugs for legitimate medical reasons. Believe me, I'll tell you when you're not. I've consulted with several experts I know about your condition. They all agree this is the right course to take. Later on, we may switch to Clonazepam, but if you really want to go with the team to try and rescue your wife and her brother, you're going to have to arrive at the briefing tomorrow morning looking better than you do now. You need to sleep and calm down. I've found you some clothes, other than those robes. They won't go down well with the General either. He's old school military."

"All right," Daniel said miserably, "More uptight than General West?"

"I'd say so. Listen," she met his eyes straight on, "in the long run, I'd recommend a therapist who specializes in these problems, someone you can talk to. Medications are all very well, but they won't take the place of dealing with your problems head on."

He shook his head vigorously, "I've seen a cartload of specialists before! You've read my file, you know - from social workers to psychiatrists - and none of them have done me any good so far. I just want those voices in my head to stop for now."

"All right," Janet Fraiser raised her hands in a gesture of surrender, "But I reserve the right to insist that you visit someone at a later date, if and when a problem comes up. Deal?"

"Deal," he agreed without argument.

"I have some clothes, here in this bag. They're not much. A clean jumpsuit, some clean regulation underwear, a black t-shirt and some shoes and socks. You can get changed here or in the men's locker room on level 28. I imagine that General Hammond will find a room for you down there anyway." She gave him an intent look, "Whatever it is that's bothering you, and I presume it didn't go away on Abydos, will come back. I've got your meds here in the bag as well. The instructions on how and when to take them are fairly clear. You should feel somewhat better with the Ativan in your system, but you won't really feel better for several weeks. That means I'd be more comfortable if you'd either stay here or with a friend. I guess that means the Colonel. There's a pass card in here for the elevator if you want to change on level 28."

"I can't burden Jack with that," Daniel hung his head, "I'll go and change downstairs. Then I guess I'll look for Hammond or someone in Administration to help me out with a place to sleep."

She nodded, "The commissary's on level 22 if you're hungry," she yelled after him as he streaked out of the doctor's office like Satan was on his tail. A therapist! More meds!! Stay at Jack O'Neill's house!!! He wasn't sticking around for any further suggestions from Dr. Janet Fraiser! Doc Napoleon was just about right on as far as Daniel was concerned.

He made it down to level 28 without any further incidents. He'd just finished changing from his Abydonian robes when he looked up and noticed Jack O'Neill was standing, watching him from the doorway. O'Neill was running his long fingers through his short light brown hair. Daniel felt forlorn and friendless at that moment, but he wasn't going to ask Jack if could stay at his house.

"Fraiser told me that you'd come down here," Jack said casually. "I see you've got a bunch of stuff. You can stow those robes in a locker if you want. I have an extra lock."

"Yeah," Daniel was sitting on the bench, "I've got to find a place to sleep for tonight."

"You want to get out of here?" Jack said to him. Daniel's heart skipped a beat.

"Yeah, but I've got nowhere to go," came the muffled response. He shrugged his shoulders.

"Come on home with me," Jack urged him, "Fraiser said you'd have to stay with somebody for the next little while or live on base."

"I can't put you out like that," Daniel said to Jack.

"Aw crap Danny, it's not putting me out at all. You'd have to put up with my stinky socks on the couch, watching hockey games and listening to opera."

"I could live with it," Daniel looked away, afraid Jack would notice the naked feeling in his eyes at the kind offer, "What will your wife say about it?"

"She won't say much 'cause she isn't there," Jack informed him, "She left before I came back from Abydos. I sold the house, split the stuff up and bought another place. We're divorced now."

"I'm sorry," Daniel observed quietly.

"Shit happens," Jack seemed unconcerned by the loss of his wife. That was really strange. He guessed that Sara and Jack O'Neill must have had really bad problems to end their ten-year marriage. 

On the way to car in the elevator, Jack tugged at the clothes that Daniel was wearing, "What the hell is this thing, anyway?"

"It's a jumpsuit," Daniel said defensively, "What do you think it is Jack?"

"I can see that, for crying out loud. I meant where'd you get it Danny? You're swimming in it." He yanked at the shoulders of the dark green suit jumpsuit on his friend, indicating the areas where there was way too much material.

"Since when were you Mr. Couturier, Jack?" Daniel tilted his head, scrutinizing Jack's jeans and black leather jacket; both had designer labels. The black t-shirt was simple, but fit him immaculately. His black leather shoes were perfectly shined. It was all so military, and yet it wasn't. To Daniel's eyes, Jack looked good really good. He'd pick Jack up if he picked up men, which he didn't. After all, he was a married man, wasn't he?

"I like to look good," Jack said defensively. Daniel bit down on his tongue before he told him that he did look good, better than good. He could just imagine how a straight military guy would react to the news that another guy found him attractive. Jack would probably rearrange his face for him.

Later that night in front of the blazing open fire at Jack's house, Jack had told him that he was "a cheaper date" than his ex-wife, and Daniel had told Jack about the celebrations on Abydos after Ra had died. He made his relationship to Shau'ri sound much better than it really was. He highlighted his wife's good points and left out the details of their marital difficulties. He didn't tell Jack about his overwhelming guilt over Shau'ri's fate. He also didn't tell him that he'd like nothing better than to forget about it in the only way that he knew how, in the arms of the man about whom he kept fantasizing. Jack kindly lent him some pajamas and some clothes for the next day and put him in the spare bedroom down the hall. Everything seemed to be going well until the middle of the night. He began having his usual dreams. The medications had made them worse as Janet Fraiser's sheet of instructions had told him that they would. Of course, it didn't make it any better when she was right. 

He dreamed about his first placement in a family home after his parents had died, and his grandfather Nick Ballard had refused to have anything to do with him. He'd been placed with Angel Rochford, an older woman, who had four children in her foster home in a battered old family brownstone in the city. That had lasted for almost three years until New York Child and Family Services had turned up on the wrong day. They'd found Angel passed out on the sofa while the kids Daniel, Tiffany, Mikey and Cindy shopped, cooked, did their homework and generally went about their business without Angel's assistance. All the kids understood that the next placement could be way worse than Angel's place. At least, Angel was a kindly woman with tendency to drink too much cheap sherry too often. He moaned slightly in his sleep.

The dream progressed to his next placement with Joanne Kingsley, who had three boys in her home: Jimmy, Ray and Daniel. Sixteen-year old Jimmy was an aggressive kid with a propensity for car jacking that would serve him well between his stints upstate at Attica, for more serious and less lucrative crimes. Ray and Daniel lived in constant fear of Jimmy's temper; fortunately, Jimmy usually liked Daniel who he forced to do his schoolwork and called him "The Dweeb". Daniel understood that his very survival depended on his ability to complete his assigned tasks to Jimmy's satisfaction. This state of affairs lasted for just under two years. There were parts of his life at Joanne Kingsley's that were completely inaccessible to his memory. It was as if the hard drive had been wiped clean. All he remembered for sure was the time that he came home from school and found Jimmy being taken away by the police. Child and Family Services soon followed, and Daniel was placed in another foster home. 

The dream continued. Now, he was at Bill and Mitzi Steiner's place. Bill was a big, beefy cop, whose friends were either firefighters or policemen. He seemed to think that instilling a solid dose of hetero masculinity into little Danny Jackson was his mission in life. Danny was good in school, not a plus as far as Bill was concerned, but he was still quite small even at sixteen. Daniel was also what would have been termed "a pretty boy", another negative quality in Bill's mind. Daniel learned quickly not to disagree with Bill, who had a nasty a temper and quick backhand, but he managed in general to stay out of his way. 

Whenever they had noisy barbecues with policeman, firefighters and paramedics and their children, Daniel generally hid in the basement with his books. It was there Daniel discovered, much to his dismay, that he really did like boys better than girls. This came as an unwelcome revelation. 

He was, as usual, hiding out in the basement when Fire Chief Morrissey's son, seventeen-year-old Cliff had sauntered down to the basement. Cliff was in his class in school, but he was a year older than Daniel. Daniel had already skipped a grade, which was all that the School District in Queen's would allow. He later made up for it by beginning his first PhD in England after just two years of university. He was reading a book on Egypt.

"Whatcha' reading, Danny?" Daniel had looked up to find tall, light brown haired, dark-eyed Cliff standing beside him. He thought that he'd found the furthest corner of the basement to hide in, but Cliff always found him anyway. For some reason Daniel couldn't explain Cliff seemed to like him. And he liked Cliff back. He knew Cliff would end up being a firefighter, just like his old man, but it didn't matter.

"It's just a book, you know on Egyptology. It's what I'm planning to study when I go to university next year." Daniel said patiently, trying to hide the book away.

Cliff sat down beside him on the battered basement sofa, "No, I really want to see."

"The librarian, Miss Feary brought it to school for me," Daniel confessed, "I have to read it, then bring it back. Undamaged," he added inconsequentially, knowing Cliff wouldn't dream of damaging the book.

"Pass it over here," Cliff demanded. He looked over the book, which was written in a language he didn't understand and the small color illustrations were also strange, "What language is this anyway, Danny?" He pointed to the text.

"It's in French," Daniel told him.

"And this," Cliff pointed at some colored illustrations in the text.

"It's a cartouche," Daniel pointed to the picture and talked a bit about hieroglyphics and what they meant.

"You know what it says, Danny?" 

Daniel smiled, stroking the illustrations in the book, "Pretty much. At least, all of the French and a good part of the other stuff. My parents taught me some hieroglyphics, and I took a summer course for high school students in Egyptology at Columbia University this summer and last summer." Daniel tried to take the book back.

"I guess you're pretty smart," Cliff concluded, "I guess you'll be digging up ancient kings and stuff when I'm driving around on a fire truck." He moved a little closer to Daniel, "Smart and cute too."

At this, the bright blue eyes behind Daniel's glasses lighted up. As the son of the Chief, young Cliff Morrissey had a significant burden on his young shoulders, not that he couldn't handle it. He was strong, athletic and sure of himself, but Daniel knew his friend's secret. He liked other boys, and diminutive pretty Daniel was the boy that Cliff liked best. Daniel avoided spending too much time alone with Cliff, fearing the consequences if anyone found out because he liked Cliff as well.

"You always say stuff like that to me Cliffey," Daniel used Cliff's pet name. 

"I don't say anything that's not true," Cliff commented, "We should probably be outside with everyone else." He moved a little closer, putting the book on the floor. He put his hand out tentatively as if he were touching fire and touched the soft, brown hair of his friend. "So soft, Danny," he whispered.

"We can't do this Cliffey," Daniel told him, his blue eyes glowing with inner feeling.

"Why not?" Cliff insisted.

"Because," Daniel pleaded, "I'll get into really big trouble. Somebody will find out, and I want to go away to university next year."

"Okay," Cliff said, "When you go away to university, I'll come and visit you at school wherever you go." 

"All right," Daniel said - and he had. For the first year, the second year and then the first year of Graduate School, Daniel was in love with Cliff who'd gone to Fire College. He'd loved Cliff with an overwhelming passion he hadn't known again until he'd met Jack O'Neill. Cliff was strong, handsome and unashamed of being gay. Daniel felt completely undeserving of such a man, going away to Grad School at UCLA in California put a wedge between them, and Daniel ended the affair. 

He was dreaming about their breakup. There, he was again in some Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles saying cruel things that he didn't mean. He moaned some more, thrashing in his sleep. He screamed, Cliff was on fire, and then he turned into Shau'ri being taken hostage through the Gate - all his fault, the guilt and the stupidity, all because he wasn't what he should be - a straight man for whom she should've been enough. Yelling and moaning, he thrashed about some more. Then he woke up. There was a form in the doorway. He sat up and screamed.

"For crying out loud, Daniel, are you okay? You woke me up. You were making a hell of a racket pal." Jack's long shadow danced nervously in the doorway. He was wearing gray sweat pants and a white muscle shirt. Daniel thought that he'd never seen anyone he wanted more or who was more unobtainable. 

"Sure," Daniel gulped, trying to dry the tears that had flowed down his face. All for a romance that was so dead, it was dust. He should've been dreaming about Shau'ri.

"You were screaming some name, I didn't catch it," Jack moved closer to the bed and sat down. He was so close that Daniel could smell his essence, his sweat, the masculine odor of his body. Daniel could see a few stray silver hairs at the top of his chest. Jesus, he was close. He leaned forward and touched Daniel's upper arm. Daniel collapsed on to Jack, tears falling again - so unprepared was he for this moment. 

Jack looked worried, "Hey, buddy. Shit, Daniel I'm sorry. It's been a terrible day. I promised you we'd get her back, and we will. I know you're feeling like crap because of the meds, losing Shau'ri and leaving Abydos. It's going to be okay, I promise you." Jack moved still closer, touching Daniel's shoulder now. 

Daniel's body felt rigid with suppressed pain and need. He was drawing his demons up inside of himself tight. Jack put his arms around him. Probably, Jack had done this many times before, when he'd been in prison in Iraq and another soldier needed him, or when a Secret Ops mission had gone bad and one of his men had died. He wasn't really a soldier, but clearly Jack felt some sense of special responsibility for him. 

It felt so good, he wished that he could make love to Jack and make the pain go away, but that wasn't possible. Daniel felt that he was fragile, brittle and much too needy. He didn't do buddy fucks, and he didn't want to know if Jack did. Silent tears tracked down his face. "Ssh, Danny - don't cry. Don't cry. Hey buddy." Jack reached out and touched the brown hair with a surprisingly gentle hand.

Daniel put his arms around the other man, feeling that he'd been invited to get closer. His very tears were a painful release, like blood being squeezed from a stone. He uttered one word to Jack, half-shamed by his vulnerability and need, "Stay." He thought the other man would draw back, but he didn't.

"Sure," Jack acquiesced as if it had been the easiest thing in the world, getting into the bed, drawing the covers back over the two of them, stroking Daniel's head one moment, holding him tight the next. Jack spoke to him in a soft tone of assurance, not letting go for a second, making Daniel feel safe as though none of what had happened truly mattered. The words were unimportant; it was what they signified to him. They felt like a warm, soft blanket around his senses. After a time, he felt his breathing become easier - a combination of the medication that Dr. Janet Fraiser had given him and the one beer Jack had provided. They allowed him to doze off. His mind barely registered a soft pressure on the top of his head once before he drifted off to sleep with Jack's arms still around him. Had he not known better, he might have thought that Jack O'Neill had actually kissed him.

However, when Daniel woke up in the morning, Jack was there with coffee and waffles as though nothing at all had happened the night before. Daniel never stopped to ask himself why Jack, a seemingly straight air force Colonel, did this for him on this particular night. He spent almost every Friday night at Jack's house after that, but Jack didn't share a bed with him again. Sometimes, he had trouble with bad dreams. The strong medications he took gave him vivid, sometimes disturbing dreams. If he screamed in his sleep, Jack would wake him up and sit and talk to him until he was ready to go back to sleep. 

Occasionally, when they went off world together, Jack would get a little closer if Daniel was having trouble at night since silence was often essential in whatever situation they found themselves. He might wake up to find Jack's hand clapped over his mouth if he was dreaming and there was a need for silence on an off-world mission. He'd memorized every inch of Jack's hard muscular frame. He was terrified about what might happen if they actually found Shau'ri. Then he'd be called upon to be her husband again, and he wasn't sure if he could fulfill that role. He considered talking about this with her father, Kasef, but he had decided to wait until they actually found Shau'ri before doing anything. 

His medications still had a strong effect on his libido. It wasn't as bad as the meds he'd been taking before he went to Abydos, but it was bad enough. That meant that he stopped considering whether or not he should, as Sarah and Janet Fraiser had suggested, see a therapist and deal with his sexual issues once and for all. Time passed and he still spent most Friday nights and a great many of his weekends in Jack's company. 

Daniel wondered what Jack was doing about his own libido, but no woman appeared to take her place in Jack's home and heart. The year passed slowly by. Was Jack so devastated by his son's death that he couldn't imagine having another woman in his life? Did he meet women secretly on the side? Daniel had no idea. The idea that Jack might have been meeting men at bars on his time off never occurred to Daniel. After all, Jack had been married with a son. He was a Colonel in the USAF. He couldn't possibly be gay. Normal guys, particularly guys he liked, in Daniel's confused mind, simply weren't gay. 

There were some incidents with women during this time. Jack had had sexual intercourse with Kynthia on Argos after eating the wedding cake, but the cake was clearly drugged. He, himself, had been seduced and raped by Hathor, but he hardly recalled the event. He resisted Janet Fraiser's further attempts on this occasion to get him to go to a psychiatrist and talk about it as well. If he did that, the psychiatrist would figure out that he had unresolved feelings about Jack, and he didn't want that those issues to surface.

Daniel felt faintly guilty about spending so much time with Jack, but he was so comfortable when they were alone together. He never had to explain about himself, apologize for being either extremely quiet or his sudden enthusiasms. He didn't even have to fight with Jack about the television channel commander, watching PBS or the Discovery Channel as long as he let Jack watch his hockey games and listen to opera. This was, more or less, what he supposed that guys did together when they were friends. 

So when Jack watched over him off world and on the base, he came to accept it as kind of caring he'd never experienced before in his life. Although they sometimes fought about what was the right thing to do in any given situation, Daniel knew that Jack gave him a certain amount of latitude in these disagreements that he didn't allow any other individual. Part of this was because he was a non-military civilian, and the other part was just because he was Daniel - different and somehow special - particularly to Jack. 

He knew that no one dared to bother him, as crazy as he was, because Jack O'Neill was familiar with more ways to kill a human being than anyone else on the base. That was what came from hanging around with a guy who was ex-Special Forces. Jack marked him, just like Shau'ri had marked before she'd disappeared to become Amaunet, the wife of Apophis. His status as a pseudo-widower gave him the luxury of not deciding, not doing what Sarah had told him he should do, come to terms with whoever and whatever he was. Instead, he drifted down river, making no decisions that would force him to confront the issue of his own sexuality, particularly the way he felt about Jack O'Neill and what he was going to do about it. 

Later when he thought of it, Daniel wondered why he hadn't understood what it was really all about from the very beginning. At the time, all he knew was that it was the first time in his life when someone had come close enough to touch his heart, to help him bear the terrible burden of his strangeness, to show him that he would not be forever rejected and forever alone and that Jack wanted nothing more than to be close to him. No one had ever asked for so little from Daniel and given so much. He worried that he had no similar gift to give back to Jack except for the gift of love and his conscience caught up in the beating of his lonely heart, and he was afraid that they would be rejected as unworthy. So he never realized how it was he who had healed the broken heart of Jack O'Neill, and given it new hope the first time they went to Abydos. It was a secret only time could reveal.


End file.
